


Like a Stone

by Serenhawk



Series: Cockles in the Wild [4]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Cockles, Cockles Cooperative, Cockles Cooperative Hiatus Fic Challenge, Congressman!Misha, Depression, Future Fic, M/M, Making out in the Impala, POV Misha, Polyamory, Skinny Dipping, long term relationships are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-12 18:30:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7944832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenhawk/pseuds/Serenhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's summer 2034,  and the Ackles & Collins clans have gathered for their annual family vacation at the Ackles' owned lake house. For Misha, turning off from his professional life is proving difficult, and he's avoiding acknowledging how self-isolated and distant he is. Which is why, during an unexpected afternoon trip in the impala, he doesn't see it coming when Jensen forces him to confront how strained they've become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hallemcready](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hallemcready/gifts).



> This is possibly the most challenging (and personally taxing) piece I've attempted, and a departure for this series. It started as 'comedy hijinks with Dads in Baby' - I wanted an excuse to still have Jensen invested in that car to the point it vacations with them, and to be able to tag it Jensen/Impala for funsies. This did not happen.  
> First it turned bittersweet, and from there a painful exercise in drawing a future where Jensen is forced to rescue Misha from the culdesacs in his own head. I made it difficult for myself by writing from a very internalized Misha POV on the brink of depression, and while you'd expect him to be more self aware, he's withdrawn and narrowed just enough to become self-absorbed and lose the objective sight he needs to know what is happening, including the effect it has on those around him. 
> 
> I spent way too much time thinking about technology in 18 years time and at the point I began designing them a hypothetical smarthouse complete with AI I realized it was irrelevant for what was supposed to be a 3k fic, so please handwave any references as vaguely-considered guesses.  
> I also devoted too much time researching and agonizing over putting Misha in Congress. I sincerely doubt he'd EVER consider going back to politics, but it suited my purpose and isn't out of the realm of possibility. 
> 
> Lastly, this is for Holli, my generous and tireless cheerleader, and fellow connoisseur of Cockles angst. <3
> 
> This is a work of fiction. No disrespect intended to those whose names are used.
> 
> Addendum: the title for this adds another layer now following Chris Cornell's death, and I have a sad :'(

 

 

July, 2034.

 

“The car’s gone!”

Clipped and bouncing off the rough-sawn walls of the hallway, the exclamation dragged Misha’s attention away from the magazine resting on his lap to the approaching footfalls. He wasn’t actually reading it, the afternoon light reflecting off the lake lulling him near a doze as he reclined on the settee inside the bifolding doors, spread wide to alleviate the heat. Looking up when the heavy steps ceased his eyes fell on Jensen, brow and lips pinched as he fumbled for his device in his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, curious but mostly lacking in sincerity he might have once had for Jensen’s forays into melodrama.

“The car’s gone,” Jensen repeated, gruff but tight.

It was Misha’s turn to frown. “Can you elaborate?” he finally asked.

“The Impala,” Jensen answered curtly.

“Gone--?”

The other man looked up, exasperation further twisting his furrowed brow. “Yes, Mish. It’s gone! Been taken….I dunno.”

“Oh!” Misha replied unhelpfully.

“Yeah, ‘Oh’,” Jensen echoed, focusing back on the screen in his hand. “Shit,” he snarled after a moment.

“What?”

“The goddamn GPS has been turned off.” Tossing the device carelessly into the dining table, he scrubbed a palm through his hair and let out an explosive “Fuck!”

Misha’s train of thought veered onto a different track. “You have a tracker in the Impala?” he asked curiously. The thought of Jensen, purist and sentimentalist that he was, equipping the vehicle with anything remotely resembling technology seemed an anathema.

Jensen eyed him obstinately. “Yeah, and I should be able to disable the engine too. I can’t figure out how somebody knew where to...wait--” he flicked his eyes around the room. “Where are the girls?”

“Uh, I thought they had the boat. Mase said something about lunch on the island.” Misha hadn’t really paid attention to the morning discussion when everyone announced their plans. All he knew was he was going to have some rare solitude and potentially a nap in the sun while Vicki and Danneel took the twins in the direction of town for the day. Or maybe it was a hike, he couldn’t quite recall. The older duo were barely in the house during daylight. All least once they’d woken up which, it had to be said, couldn’t be counted on before noon.

“That was hours ago Mish. Did you hear them come back?” Jensen’s tone was almost accusatory, and Misha ruffled.

“No, otherwise I’d have mentioned it. They’re officially grown women, Jensen. They’re not accountable to me for every minute.”

Jensen let out a derisive hiss. “They may look like women, but that doesn’t mean squat and you know it. I mean, have you _met_ your daughter?”

Misha resisted lashing out at the benign jibe he knew was directed as much to him as to Maison. He and Jensen hadn’t always seen eye to eye on approaches to parenting, and while to say their daughters shared a ‘spirited’ streak was a gross understatement, Misha had secretly found amusement on many an occasion at Maison using her uncanny 80-year-old-in-a-child’s-body wiles to butt heads with Jensen. JJ on the other hand —while equally as capable— had more to lose, and tended to let the older girl do her dirty work...which Jensen interpreted at his daughter deferring to (and corrupted by) Misha’s, whose will almost always over-rode temperance. Misha was proud of everything that made Maison make her parent’s life difficult. Vicki was too, she was just less inclined to let _Maison_ know she cheered her uncompromising intractability on.

He canted his head and set his tone to 'dangerously level'.

“How about we focus on the urgent situation,” he said, still eye-rolling internally at why Jensen, jaw taut and shoulders high, was at red-alert status. Bringing the classic car with them was something of a summer tradition, and it being taken for a joyride was hardly the worst thing that could or had happened to it. “Is the boat back?” 

Jensen was already crossing the floor to the deck before he’d finished the sentence. Standing on tip-toes he peered down the bank towards the lake edge, then spun with a terse “Yep." He strode back to the console where the families generally threw their day-to-day sundries as they arrived in the house in which they’d shared summer and occasional weekend getaways over the past five or so years. Or maybe it was closer to ten, Misha deliberated. They’d only all made it here together a handful of times recently. Ever since he began spending most of his time in the capital, and West had started forsaking joint family gatherings for whatever humanitarian hiatus adventure he’d chosen that year.

“Keys’re gone,” Jensen confirmed, turning back to him. “Can you still ground twenty-one year olds?” he boomed, crossing his arms and glowering despite Misha being the only witness to his best defiant father stance.

“I've no idea. But I'm sure we can serve them with a fitting punishment when they return.”

“I’m not waiting. Let’s go find them.”

“What?” Misha asked, watching as Jensen crossed the room again to snatch his device from the table.

Jensen punched his thumb around the screen. “Jay might have known how to lose the car... _dammit!_ and her phone. But….did she…..ah-huh!” he finally erupted, facing Misha with a tight grin and jiggling the screen, “they’re at the cove.”

“How—?—you know, I don’t wanna know,” Misha started, wondering exactly at what point humanity gave up on any remaining pretext of privacy. “ _The_  Cove?”

“What’s the bet there’s a party there.”

Misha nodded, catching up. The small beach on the far side of town was the official unofficial gathering point for socializing.

“And you want to—?”

“Go embarrass them, of course.”

Misha nodded. “Of course. Why don’t we call Vic or Dani and get them to swing by?” he ventured, thinking it was far more practical since their wives were likely in the vicinity.

“No!” Jensen barked, a bit too quickly. “You want to volunteer we lost the children?” Misha snorted softly, though Jensen had a small point. He thought they’d  most likely be laughing at them right now given the children in question were about to enter their final year at college and had been living away from home for some time. “Besides, dads are far more embarrassing than moms," Jensen qualified.

“How?” Misha enquired. “I’m pretty sure I exhausted all possible ways I could embarrass my offspring long ago.”

“Yeah, good point,” Jensen agreed. “Can still give them an old fashioned dressing down in public though.”

Misha leveled another look at him, unsure if he was sincere or all bluster. “It’s the _I_ _mpala,_ Mish,” Jensen returned heavily. “Come _on._ ” Sighing in concession, he forgave Jensen the last small vestige of Dean Winchester that remained fifteen years after he’d been put to rest.

“Want me to come with?” he asked, in two minds about his inclusion in the enterprise since he, for all his love of everything Jensen, it had never naturally encompassed the car. Not all the memories attached to it were ones he owned happily. Though given his daughter was undoubtedly complicit in helping  _steal it_  —if temporarily— he supposed he'd better distinctly take Jensen's side.

His friend’s brow twitched defensively. “Course, why wouldn’t I?”

Misha let the corner of his mouth quirk, capitulating to the un-answerability of the question - not without examining exactly why he’d asked in the first place. “Let me get my shoes,” he answered, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.

He trotted to the bedroom he and Vicki shared, thinking as he wedged on his slipons it had been a long while since he shared it with Jensen. In fact he had to dredge up the memory of the last time they’d shared a bed at all - a rare weekend together in NYC which, _shit_ Misha thought, counting back in his head, _had it really been almost two years?_

It’s not like anything specific precluded them drifting. Misha still hungered for him. For his smile, his touch, for Jensen’s approval and acquiescence. He still felt the molten core of his love for him, fierce and certain even buried deep within his mantle.  It was more that their planes of existence had circled away and they were in the kind of trough any relationship was subject to from time to time. They were becalmed perhaps, far enough apart that he might even wish for a storm if he weren’t preoccupied. And weary. Or at least that’s what he told himself. Mostly he was philosophically content with the ebbs and flows, and quelled any murmur of loneliness when he was around the man with whom he’d shared so much of himself over the past several decades.

It was his fault, he didn’t hesitate to place the blame squarely on his own shoulders. The past three...nearly four years he’d spent tooing and froing from D.C. had bled him, despite initially being energized; personal ideology had little materiality once it got you to the chamber door. He’d known going in that not losing his dignity was going to be one of the biggest challenges, and while he’d won, and suceeded on top of that, the effort was depleting.

He dithered over changing his shirt, in the end opting to swap his frayed tee for a button down with long sleeves that he rolled to his elbows while scanning the furniture for his sunglasses, sure he’d left them on the dresser. Arriving back in the living area he continued to lightly toss the room in a futile search while Jensen appeared from the deck, sliding the glass doors to a close and clicking the lock.

“Good to go?” his friend asked over his shoulder.

“Uh...yeah. Hey you haven’t seen my—” He hovered absently, then darted for the console. As he lifted papers to look underneath the wayward accessory appeared, held under his nose.

“They were on the table, outside. Thought you’d want them,” Jensen explained, succinct as ever.

Misha took them, a smile ticking at the corner of his mouth. “You know me too well.”

Jensen made a ‘humph’ noise and pinned him with a look Misha couldn’t decipher. “C’mon,” he said, finally turning for the hallway. Misha followed him downstairs until he paused in front of Misha’s car. “You’re in charge,” Jensen ordered. “I can’t drive a car without an engine."

Misha scoffed. “Ita perfectly engineered engine,” he argued, knowing it was nine-tenths a joke. One of many that had been worn thin over the years, but were as much part of their affirming rituals as the kiss on the cheek they gave each other before retiring for the night, or presenting the other with a perfectly steeped tea or timed beer. Small threads they brushed into place to maintain the weave.

He moved around the hood and slid into the driver’s seat. “If you don’t need to put gas in it, it’s not an engine,” Jensen grouched, levering his door shut and shuffling his spine against the seat. “Not to mention you turn it on _and_ drive it just by talking to it.” Misha puffed, gently amused. Jensen didn’t seem to have any issues with operating the house and all its appliances the same manner. Something in him was offended only when it came to vehicles.

“I’ll operate it the old fashioned way, just for you,” he assured, choosing not to add it was a preference. He was not one to give up on the few things in life over which one still had complete control. 

He backed out of the carport, then steered them down the short narrow drive to the road circumnavigating the lake. A stray silence kept them company for most of the twenty minute journey, until Misha felt its discomfort. “So, what’s your plan, here?” he asked, looking sidelong at his passenger. “Are we talking full metal jacket, or—?” He trailed off, hoping Jensen wasn’t actually intending to ruin the girls' evening.

Jensen sucked in his bottom lip and looked out the window. “Not sure yet.”

“Want some back up?”

Misha turned off the road into the bump-ridden drive leading to the makeshift carpark, twenty or so vehicles emerging spread out in the dappled shade. Sure enough, the black car was among them, sitting graciously between two majestic trees.

He’d pulled up in a clear space near the beach track, putting the car in park before looking back to Jensen, wondering if he was going to receive an answer. Instead he found himself the subject of a look peppered with questions, which was not an inspection he could hold, even hidden behind his shades. He cast his eyes back to towards the lake, where he could see scattered groups of kids arranged on the wide beach. The place wasn’t special, other than being known as the hangout for some of the local youth including the transient vacationers considered still young enough to party without qualifying as lame by some unspoken charter. Many of the kids here would be regular visitors, like their own who’ve spent part of most summers here since Jensen and Danneel bought the vacation house, it being the one time of the year they locked in for their families to spend together. It was a pretty spot; a petit bay, perfectly crescent-shaped and nestled between higher jutting headlands, far enough away from residential intrusion yet close enough to town for top-up beer runs. Squinting, he thought he could make out Maison with her cropped dark hair, gesticulating enthusiastically at another girl before throwing back her head with laughter, unheard over the music emanating from a little further up the beach.

“Naw, I got this,” Jensen said quietly but startling him, the few seconds since he'd offered his support seeming longer. “I don’t want to intimidate them. Much.”

“I thought that’s what we’re here for?” Misha asked, bemused.

“Hey, I just wanted the damn car back. And to get you out of the house, old man.” He patted Misha’s knee, then shoved open the door. “C-mon out, so I can go swap the key.”

Misha pushed himself out of the car and shut the door. “Mase doesn’t need it, the car will know her, but— here,” he said, flipping the small device across the roof to Jensen. “Give it to her anyway.”

“ _Know_ her—” Jensen muttered distrustfully as he turned to walk away, adjusting his cap as he disappeared down the gouged access track.  Misha let a smile drift after him as he leaned on the bonnet and waited, Jensen emerging a minute or so later on the pebbled beach, doing an impression of a stern march Misha thought would fool no one, but made him chuckle fondly anyway. He watched as Jensen reached the sitting clique and held out an accusatory palm for his daughter to deposit the misappropriated car’s keys, and who it had to be noted showed no signs of fluster or remorse, at least from a distance. Then he swiveled and tossed the remote to Maison as he passed her, before heading back the way he’d come. As far as Misha could make out he appeared to have not said a word, which was unsurprising - Jensen was always scarier when he said nothing, as Misha could attest from the times he’d been at the pointed end of that cold glance.

Misha greeted him with a raised brow as he rose from the beach access and stopped a few feet away. “What?” Jensen said tightly, then thumbed towards the object of their quest. “Let’s go.”

Pushing off on his heel, Misha moved to fall into step as they walked across the clearing. “Here I was harboring serious concerns for your blood pressure, when all along you were luring me out under false pretenses,” he accused as they reached the car. By the time he circled to the passenger’s side, Jensen had already sat and reached to unlock it. Sliding into the rejuvenated upholstery, he pulled the heavy door shut with the characteristic groaning squeak belonging to these particular old ladies.

“Not entirely,” Jensen replied. “Jay will be crapping herself, I made sure of that.”

“Softie,” Misha teased, doubtful.

“Hey, as long as I’m not stumping bail, or a grandfather within the next five years, we’re all good.”

He twisted the key, the engine erupting into throaty purr, then leaned an arm over the wheel to look squarely at Misha with a glint in his eye. “So, what shall we do, Congressman?”

Misha wrinkled his nose at the title. “You’re the one with all the ideas,” he parried.

Jensen rolled his wrist to look at his watch. “Hungry?” Misha hoisted his bottom lip noncommittally. “Let’s head back through town, pick up some food and a few bottles and...I dunno, just drive,” Jensen finished, shrugging.

“Just drive?”

Jensen pulled a face. “Yeah, why not. ‘Til we find somewhere to park up.”

Misha nodded, consideration turning to agreement.”You plan to sneak me out on a date all along?” he asked, tipping his head.

“Hey man, you want me to take you home to have that nap? Just say the word.”

He lifted his eyes to the roof to hide briefly but seriously weighing the options. But he was out now, and it seemed like as good an idea as any. “‘Kay, let’s go,” he replied, reaching for his seatbelt with limited enthusiasm.

They diverted off the lake road into the small town that serviced the mainly rural area but currently burgeoned with the mid-summer vacation population. Emerging from the market oversupplied with ingredients for a makeshift picnic meal including chilled beer, wine and some sugary boutique cider that caught Jensen’s eye, they sank into the car and steered it along the road back towards the lake.

They’d been following the winding route northwards for at least fifteen minutes before Jensen interrupted the quiet with a sigh, grated and forced like he’d been harboring it against his will.

“So when are we gonna talk about it?” his friend asked, the impatience in his voice spooking him.

He looked sideways, lips parting as an anonymous unease cinched his insides tight. Talking through an issue, while something he was not terrible at and had imposed on many an occasion, was generally a course he avoided until absolutely necessary, and he _definitely_ hated going in off guard. Jensen however lacked his ingrained need to shirk conflict, his voice carrying a sharp edge. 

Misha ran his tongue over his bottom lip and swallowed, trying not to bristle at the innate accusation they were deliberately not talking about something and it was Misha's fault. “About what?”

Jensen moved his eyes from the road, the lines around them softening as they ranged over Misha’s face and shoulders. “Us, Misha— _You—_ how you’re unhappy.”

He frowned, confusion settling over self-doubt. “I’m not unhappy about us,” he protested slowly.

A shadow crossed his friend’s gaze even as a small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Well, good. Though that’s not what I meant.” Misha a took a breath in order to ask him to please, kindly, say what he fucking meant but Jensen cut him off with another remark, slicing closer to the quick. “I meant...I _mean_ , you’ve checked out on me— not just me, but especially me. And...I miss you, man.”

Misha stared back, tracing Jensen’s profile as he focused back on driving, a task in which the gigantic vehicle responded —after nearly thirty years— like a natural extension of the man sitting behind the wheel.

At the same time it was imbued with symbolism, staying lovingly housed unless Jensen needed a literal and figurative escape, or when it joined them on their summer breaks. It was one of the few places even still, Jensen felt entirely free. But lodged in its cavities and seams were many memories, from the times they’d met and their early years together when things always seemed to move so fast yet joyously slow, to other flashing recollections. They'd gotten high and made out in this car, fought in it, got each other off in it, had piled sandy kids and the back and taken off for frozen yoghurt in it. Misha had always gently derided Jensen’s attachment to the old vehicle, but it was a part of Jensen, and so was a piece of them.

Looking down at his fingers tucked nervously over his thigh, he wished he’d stayed at the house. “I’ve been busy, Jensen,” he answered dully.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” the other man replied with a trace of annoyance, triggering his own.

“The job is important,” he snapped. “I know it’s...consuming. But it’s something I need to see out.” He fumed out the window at the passing green wall, first at the feeling he was being imposed upon, and then at knowing he was being reactive. The burgeoning silence eventually prompted him to look back at Jensen, eyes fixed firmly on the road. “Sorry,” he murmured.

Jensen’s gaze flicked over to him, treacherously soft. “For what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you need me to be sorry for.”

Wincing internally, he kicked himself for how stupidly petty and dismissive he sounded. Unable to look at Jensen’s face he focused on the view, occasional slivers of light reflecting off the water between the trees as they passed on their winding journey.

He tried to order his thoughts beyond a defensive tide, a stronger version of the same eddy he'd already been swimming against. Guilt for letting the work take too much of his time, and his spirit. Armor and detachment he needed for getting the it done. An incongruous loyalty to being there born of stubbornness and the need to see it through. It’s not like he didn’t _know_ he was going to hate every minute of it. But the opportunity to run for office had just presented itself right when he was at a crossroads - he was mostly a silent partner in the backyard production company he'd helped nurture and he'd been in a post-project lull, and with both kids leaving the house it has seemed like as good a time as any. Politics had been one of those niggly unchecked boxes in his life, and he was afraid he’d always wonder ‘what if’. _Then_ his father had been so unexpectedly proud when he’d somehow achieved the dubious honor of a seat, he just had to honor that. It hadn’t even mattered that at the time his Dad was seldom lucid. But now three and whatever years later, here he was. Or rather, he didn’t know where he was, because he was felt...misplaced, like he was looking at his life through a tunnel where he was trapped at the other end. Fealty and pride were shitty governers.

Sweeping his eyes sideways, he timidly raised them to take in the contours of Jensen’s face, free from the beard he usually wore through the cooler months now, when the grey flecks that were rapidly overtaking the warm ginger seemed more aligned with the season. Something popped in his chest, the pressure wave bucking him to the limits of the distance that seemed to stretch much wider than the space between them on the bench seat.

He missed Jensen. He missed his friend, and he missed the quiet spaces they'd always made sure to carve out for each other.

He was _fucking this up_.

He was fucking this up royally but he felt powerless, the words he wanted to claw back that distance impotently waning. So he said nothing, and let the gulf across the creamy upholstery yawn.

“How about up here?” Jensen asked, tugging Misha from the barbed cage of his thoughts. He blinked, focusing on the road ahead until he got his bearings and realized they’d traveled nearly half-way around the lake, which meant he’d lost a good twenty minutes somewhere.

He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t this a make-out spot?”

Jensen cast him a wide-eyed look. “I wouldn’t know _what_ you’re talking about," his friend replied, batting his lashes before slowing the car for the turn. The attempt at humor only served to push him further into melancholy. Jensen was holding back.

They pulled off the road and into the short track leading to the carpark - a cleared area atop a low but steep cliff on the lake edge. The hum of the engine dropped letting quiet rush in at them, though this time it felt like a relief. “Let’s go,” Jensen said after a moment.

“Go?”

“Down to the beach. Make it a proper picnic. And there's still no food allowed on the new finish,” he grinned, patting the seat.

Following Jensen out of the car, he tucked the bag of food under one arm and picked up a bottle with the other, waiting while the other man pulled a blanket from the trunk. Then he took the lead negotiating the sloping goat track down to the water’s edge where they walked around a small promontory, soon finding a log where they could lay the blanket on the sandy soil and comfortably lean.

Misha opened the wine straight away, downing a near-full paper cup’s worth before sipping at a second and picking at the pasta salad he’d bought. Beside him, Jensen stretched his long legs and appeared relaxed, but Misha recognized an aloofness in the line of his shoulders that he usually reserved for people that weren’t him. People Jensen tried to show he wasn’t uncomfortable around when he usually wanted to be anywhere else.

“I’m sorry,” he blabbed suddenly, shoving away the container doubling as his plate. “I'm failing to understand, but I’m sorry for blowing you off before.” Jensen threw away the stalk of a strawberry he’d been eating, forcing a sigh as he opened a second beer. “Talk to me,” Misha added, more plaintive than he intended.

“That’s my line,” Jensen dryly quipped back, drawing up his knees and taking a long draft.

“True,” Misha conceded with a thin smile. He’d heard those three words many times over the years.

Jensen glanced over. “I just wanna know, did we break up and I didn’t get the memo? Or—”

“Wait—” Misha interrupted, blindsided. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Mish,” Jensen said, eerily calm and too patient for the growing trepidation Misha felt. “We go through the motions, but I don’t want to share a vacation with the ghost of you and me.”

Misha stumbled around for something to say. “This job, this... _lifestyle,_ was never going to be easy. If I’ve been distracted—”

“Dude, you blew off our twenty-fifth anniversary, amongst other things. It’s not just the job, Misha.”

“I...what?” he gaped, stricken. “We don’t have an anniversary.” _We do_ his own brain hurled back, having none of his shit.

“Not officially, but we always do something.” Misha blinked at him, drawing a crucial blank. “That weekend, end of April? In New Orleans, remember?” Jensen continued, gruff and fiery now. “You bailed on it a week out, because of…somethin’, I don’t know. I didn't care about the details.”

“Shit,” he mumbled, piecing it miserably together. “Shit shit shit.”

“Yeah. It kinda was.” Misha peeked at Jensen long enough to watch him drain his beer, then slumped his head into his hands. He wasn’t kidding when he told himself he was fucking this up.

His internal narrator broke out in an angry diatribe. Somehow, in trying to do _the right thing_ he was getting everything he cared about wrong. It’s not like Vicki hadn’t been trying her damndest to keep him grounded - he wasn’t that obtuse. But Jensen he’d let slip through the cracks and the worst part, he’d been oblivious. Perhaps willfully.

They weren’t the same, Vicki and Jensen. He was never the hearth-warming type. Jensen was the fire.

“I apologize,” he started solemnly “You are entitled to be angry about that.”

“I’m not,” Jensen cut in. “I mean, I _was_. But...I’m more worried than anything.”

Misha couldn't quite raise his eyes, but felt the hot focus of his friend’s. “Worried?”

“Yeah. About what—” Jensen took a deep breath. “What the job is costing you. _You_ , not me.”

“How so?” he asked reluctantly, numbly bracing for the impact at the end of a long trajectory. He picked at a twig and stabbed it at the dusty sand to his left, waiting for an answer that seemed to be being carefully assembled.

“I don’t think you see us, Mish, any of us,” Jensen said eventually, quiet to hide a tremulous note. “You’re...I don’t know, different. Indifferent, to everything. You don’t seem to care, and lord knows you usually care too goddamn much, but lately you're--” he trailed into a frustrated sigh.

“Detached?” Misha prompted, feeling exactly that; wooden and disjointed.

“Yeah.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jensen lift another berry from the box. “Is it worth it?” his friend asked around a mouthful. "I need you to tell me it is."

Misha’s mouth tasted of tin, and he slugged back the rest of the wine. “Worth it?”

“The job. ‘Cause you can’t convince me you _like_ it. So...is it worth losing yourself?” Misha stayed quiet, trying to find just one clear thought in the melee in his head he could latch onto and follow, like a guide rope. “It’s a great accomplishment, Misha, one on a long list. I mean, fuck, you know how much I admire everything you—”

He snorted reflexively, and Jensen broke off, pausing heavily again. Misha looked up after a moment to see his friend squinting into the low sun inflaming the water. “I don’t think you’ve been the same since your Dad,” Jensen added tentatively, and a missile scudded into Misha’s chest. “It was rough there, at the end... a part of me wonders if you buried it all by going straight into this work. And it's not only me—”

Jensen trailed off again uncertainly, leaving Misha to force down a muted wave of anguish. It wasn’t overwhelming, reigning it in was a reflex he developed when he'd undertaken the care, and rationally he'd always known it was his father’s time and the man had had few regrets. But there was possibly more than a kernel of truth in the observation.

He could only nod in acknowledgement, drawing lines in the sand while he processed the conversation, trying to get a handle on where it was headed. “So,” he said dully, “is this an intervention? An ultimatum? It’s you or the job?”

He looked up at Jensen’s profile, lips pressed harshly and jaw locked in bottled determination. He couldn't believe he just asked that, his stomach dropping. Not just because he was dazed, but he was stupidly forcing a scenario he never would have imagined when he woke up this morning. He reasoned he should be fucking fuming because _how dare his friend and_ partner _ask him to choose_ , but he couldn't quite find it within.

“We’re not the same people we were twenty years ago, you know? And our paths don’t intersect like they used to,” Jensen began roughly, then darted a look sideways. “It’s not a relationship if I’m the only one in it, Mish, Life’s too short to be treading water forever, watching you pull away and wondering if it's meant to be, ya know? Fade to black." Jensen took a deep breath. "I can’t—”

A blanket of panic smothered him, suffocating. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, abruptly pushing off the ground and dusting his knees as he stumbled towards the water’s edge. _He was just going to take a fucking nap and now everything was fucked up and—_  "Fuck."

“Misha,” came from behind him, firm.

“Gimme a minute.” He dragged in a lumpy breath and blinked away the prickles in his eyes.

Fingers curled over his right shoulder, then a thumb beginning to rub small circles at the base of his neck. “You didn't let me finish.”

“That was kind of the point,” he mumbled humorlessly, unable to help leaning into the touch, more acute for it’s rarity, and the thought of losing it.

“I was going to say—” Jensen began, undeterred, “that I can’t be benched, and watch you just drift off. You’ll have to fight me for it.”

Misha puffed bitterly, roughly driving the heel of his palm into his forehead against vertigo. “You shouldn’t have to fight for anything,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I...I’m selfish.”

The hand still resting on his shoulder gripped tighter. “Misha, turnaround.”

Reluctantly he did, slowly shuffling on the spot and keeping his eyes on the ground. Jensen’s other hand landed on the opposite side of his neck as he stepped closer. “Loving you, has never be a problem for me. It will never ever be a burden. You need to hear that, right the fuck now.”

Misha managed to meet Jensen’s staunch gaze for a split second before slumping forward, letting out a breath he’d been holding for minutes...months maybe. Jensen didn’t budge, catching him with a slow slide of arms across Misha’s back. He let himself be held, fog and confusion transmuting into something more gentle, and raw. It was a shocking relief to feel, unrefined from over thinking. “Shit,” he mouthed into the cotton smoothed over Jensen’s clavicle. “”m sorry.”

“Don’t. Just...come back to me. To us.” A trio of kisses was pressed into his hair. “And that’s not an ultimatum. Vic wouldn’t let me get away with it. I’m just selfish too.” Misha scrunched the fabric at his friend’s hips between his fingers, the idea of letting go bleak. He had no idea how long they’d stood when Jensen spoke again, but he'd regained a little solidity against the sureity of his friend's.

“Come'n sit. You’re too lean to be skipping meals,” Jensen urged. Unable to find a reason to argue he let Jensen guide him with a hand at his spine back up the beach. His appetite remained elusive, but he grazed a little in between swallows from his cup, remaining disconcertingly sober. Beside him, Jensen edged closer, attentively monitoring him with no attempt at subterfuge. It should annoy the fuck out of him but for the moment it made him feel reassuringly tethered, just within reach like he might need to grab onto an anchor.

“You wanna go for a swim?”

Misha looked up. “Now?” but Jensen had already discarded his cap and was pulling his tee over his head, the freckles across his shoulders dancing with the movement.

“C-mon. When was the last time we went skinny dipping?” he replied, pushing off the ground to stand and holding out a hand to haul Misha upwards. Loosening the button on his shorts, he issued a wink before casting the remainder of his clothes to his ankles and kicking them aside. Misha frowned and chanced a glance over his shoulder to the cliff where the carpark and road were just hidden from view. “Shy, big guy?” Jensen taunted.

“Jensen, I’m a— ah, fuck it,” he ended up deciding under his breath. Toeing off his shoes, he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of the sleeves before dropping his jeans.

“Good to see some things don’t change,” Jensen observed, nodding at Misha’s discarded pants - sans underwear - as he walked backwards towards the water line, upper lip curled by a wary grin.

“Small freedoms are often the most poignant,” Misha returned, starting after him and enjoying the sight of Jensen’s pale ass acting like a beacon once he turned around. He was a little fuller through the hips these days, his skin a little too roughly burnished in places from lazy summers, but otherwise little had changed about him in the last decade other than the subtle softening of middle age.

Jensen didn’t pause at the water, wading right in up to his waist and diving under the surface. Misha waited a time, watching him appear to shake the drops from his hair. He let the silky ripples from Jensen’s displacement lap around his ankles, wondering when he’d stopped welcoming when his friend did the same to his life. Complacency had nearly ended them once before, so he should have known better.

He hadn’t realized his concentration had drifted again until he felt a splash fall across his legs up to his abdomen. “Comin’in?” Jensen asked, following the request with another splatter of water, this time reaching Misha’s face. He flinched, but willingly surrendered to the provocation, returning the splash with a ferocious kick then chasing Jensen into the depths to successfully dunk him.

Sputtering, Jensen surfaced with a dog-like shake. “Happy now?” Misha ruefully asked while his friend blew water from his lips.

“Yes,” Jensen returned, with a, unequivocal smile. Misha couldn’t help mirroring with a shy grin of his own, but added a moderating eye-roll which in hindsight was less than wise since it diverted his attention just long enough to Jensen to launch himself and exact revenge.

Coming up cursing, he treaded water until he could attack once more, it transforming into a somewhat raucous game of predator and prey that lasted until Misha ran out of playful animosity and forfeited. They turned to wordlessly swimming around each other, or lazily paddling on the spot, their feet and sometimes fingers occasionally colliding underwater with a cold shock. Eventually with a quick scan of the still deserted beach they waded from the water and padded back to their belongings. “Flaw in the plan - no towels,” Jensen said apologetically.

Misha glanced at the lowering sun. “I guess it's air drying. We’re not in any hurry are we?"

“That's a plan,” Jensen agreed, his smile studied.

Together they carelessly packed away their leftovers and stretched out on the blanket, the air still hot despite the light fading into a rose glow. Misha’s head felt clearer for the rough baptism, and he couldn’t pretend to ignore the hints of easiness contrasted with the sinking realizations of decisions he had to make, who he didn’t want to be.

He twisted to the right, only to find he was being watched again - less cautiously than before, but with just as much resolution. Elbow on the ground, he raised his right hand in invitation, Jensen barely hesitating before slowly winding his left at the wrist and lacing their fingers together. “I miss me too,” Misha said, the words catching unexpectedly in his throat as the full truth in them expanded.

Jensen squeezed his hand and smiled queasily. “I haven’t heard you laugh in a long time, Mish. It was good to hear that.”

 _“We_ haven’t laughed in a long time,” Misha countered, and Jensen meekly hummed agreement.

It was the doleful look on his face that spurred Misha to try to dispel it. Popping up, he rolled to curl over Jensen’s side and hovered above his face. Whatever penitent offering he had died on his lips as soon Jensen scrolled his eyes to them with a tiny intake of air. Instinctively Misha sank closer, jerkily narrowing the gap as he second-guessed the moment; they’d kissed thousands of times in every way imaginable, yet it felt a little like the first time all over again.

He hesitated just short of contact, scanning Jensen’s eyes for permission and masking apprehension from his own, then dipped, finally skimming his mouth across his friend’s, chaste and questioning. Jensen didn’t answer at first and Misha thought he’d made a mistake, but then as he went to pull away Jensen’s lips chased him, slotting them hard together and punctuating with fingertips stippling behind his ear.

When they cautiously released it was mutual, Misha’s lungs reluctantly catching a breath he didn’t want to take. Opening his eyes, he found Jensen was scrutinizing him, but glanced away as soon as Misha returned the look. It wasn’t awkward, but the space between them was suddenly too full of all the time they’d let slide by.

Misha wriggled down, lining Jensen’s naked side to prop his head on a bent arm. “Twenty-five years, huh?” he said to vent the tension, knitting the fingers on his left hand through Jensen’s right. It was difficult to believe any way he looked at it.

“Fuck, we’re old,” Jensen countered, lifting his head enough to peer anxiously over his chin at his body like he was checking no limbs or appendages had fallen off in decrepitude.

“We nearly didn’t make it to three,” Misha mused, a wry smile twisting at the corner of his mouth.

Jensen groaned mournfully. “Don't remind me,” he lamented, slamming his head back against the ground and scrubbing fingers across the bridge of his nose, causing Misha to dip his forehead to his friend's shoulder and mouth a silent but amused apology. “What are we doing for your birthday?” Jensen added.

“What?” he asked, lifting his head.

“Your sixtieth?  Next month?”

“Fucking Christ. Don't remind me,” Misha echoed with a groan of his own, letting go the hand he held to flop emphatically back on the sand.

“I take it back. _You’re_ old.”

“Asshole.” This time it was Jensen’s turn to snicker. “Shit,’ Misha added in a hoarse whisper to the sky about the general state of everything.

This time Jensen leaned over him, blocking out the deeping rays heralding twilight. “Don’t worry, you’re not a quite senior citizen yet,” he teased, combing through Misha’s drying hair.

“Even if I look like one,” he prompted, hand self consciously flying to his head to whisk at his grizzled hair.

Jensen swotted it gently away with a serene smile. “I like it. Makes you look distinguished,” he said, tilting his head and continuing to order it between his fingers. Or disorder it, for all Misha knew. “For the first time in your life,” he added as a belated punchline. Misha grinned back, only because Jensen’s insolence meant everything was okay. Well, not _okay_ okay. But he felt a toehold where he had enough traction to keep his head in the clear.  _This is who they were._

“We should probably get going,” Jensen suggested, unwillingly breaking his gaze away. “Before we push our luck with the nudity.”

Misha nodded, but drifted fingertips up from Jensen’s hip along his side to win his attention back, raising a satisfying trail of goosebumps in the process. Jensen searched his face, then dropped a leisurely and delicate kiss to his mouth before standing and hauling Misha up after him. Together they dressed, shook the blanket free from the beach and gathered the remaining bags to retrace their steps back to the car, now joined by another some distance away.

Throwing everything in the back seat, they folded themselves into the front, Jensen making no move to turn over the engine. Arm crooked against the window, Misha rested a cheek on the back of his hand and watched as his friend searched the horizon.

“I’m sorry, too, ya know,” Jensen murmured after a few moments, then turned to face him. “I was busy, let things slide, thought I was giving you space. Then I got hurt ‘n pissed off and gave you _too much_ space, so I haven’t exactly been... engaged. Or attentive.”

The admission only served to add a fresh round to the mental beat-up he’d spent the better part of the last few hours administering to himself. But he wasn’t about to show it. Instead he faced out the windscreen and focused on clearing his mind, staring down the last of the light as it retreated across the lake. It worked, because he didn’t notice Jensen had slid across the bench seat until the were knee to knee and his friend was reaching to turn his chin.

“Misha,” Jensen began softly, catching his eyeline, “you would tell me— someone, if you weren’t okay, wouldn’t you?” Misha let a frown crease his forehead, unnerved by the grave ferocity in Jensen’s eyes despite the gloomy interior of the car. “In here,” he continued, pressing two fingers first Misha’s temple, then over his heart, “or, here. I’m trusting you man.”

Sensing Jensen needed confirmation Misha nodded. "Still protecting me," he murmured, then straight into his friend's stare he whispered "don't stop," with a shaky pout. A kind of relief washed through him, chest heaving with the permission to fill to capacity with air after surviving on rations for months. Seeing he was in trouble, Jensen let his lashes fall and knocked forward. Pressing a kiss first to his brow then his mouth, Misha let him stormily draw all that breath back out to leave his insecurities strewn, panted out against Jensen's sandpaper cheek before he was drawn in again, and again.

Somewhere along the line Jensen had all but crawled into his lap before Misha was struck with what they were doing. “What?” Jensen huffed in response to Misha’s chuckle against his mouth, breaking the silence previously occupied by the squeak of skin against vinyl as they wound round and against each other, rucking up shirts and rocking hips.

“We're making out,” he said. “In a make out spot, like kids.”

Jensen wagged his eyebrows.  “Mmm-hmm. And—” he said, not waiting for an answer before swiping his tongue over the seam of Misha's lips and coaxing him back into the wordless exchange before he could make some crack about middle-aged has-beans. His thoughts meandered, cleaved between the kindling desire riding his pulse as Jensen‘s thigh began working a rhythm between his, and envy of his friend's easy semi-retirement, and most precious of all, autonomy.

“I’m going to quit,” he mumbled, making the decision as he said it. He pulled back, gauging his own reaction as much as Jensen’s.

Fingers uncurled from his hair and rested on his chest, pressing them apart. He held Jensen’s scrutiny; maybe it was easier in the dark. “Don’t do it for me,” his friend finally said, cautious and low.

“I could. It’s a good enough reason,” he whispered, dusting the pad of his thumb along Jensen’s cheekbone, before adding dryly, “but it’s for —probably literally— my sanity.”

Jensen smirked lightly. “Well that’s never been a bottom line for me,” he teased. Then he slowly nodded, circumspect.

“Maybe we can work a project together. It’s been a while,” Misha mused.

Jensen stayed hesitant. “Don’t hurry this. Be sure. I only wanted you to take stock, not blackmail you. I don't want you to give it up if you'd regret it or res—.”

“Oh I’m positive,” he interrupted assuringly. “Fuck it. I’m not far from the end of this term anyway.”

Jensen tipped his head to the side, optimism subtly replacing caution in the lines around his eyes. “We could talk about when we go away for your birthday.”

“We are?” he blinked.

“Afterward. Vee has _plans_ , _"_ he said meaningfully, looking out the window. "But you ‘n me, week on a tropical island somewhere—”

“It’s hurricane season.”

Jensen glanced back. “Fuck you too” he gruffed while they flashed grins at each other. “Stay with me,” he added, shifting back to earnest on a hairtrigger. “Tonight,” he amended when Misha raised a puzzled brow, “come sleep with me. We’re not done here, Mish.”

“Your wife might have an opinion on that,” he countered, narrowing his expression.

Jensen rolled his eyes, like Misha had advocated kicking her out when _he_ was the one who made the suggestion. “There’s the spare.”

“The mattress is terrible in that room. West is the only one who puts up with it.”

“Misha!” Jensen whined melodramatically.

“And you said you’d missed me,” Misha deadpanned.

Jensen stared him down for a long second, then pinned him back against the seatrest. The kiss was violent in intent but lacking in the follow through, turning soft and desperate in a millisecond then veering into opulent, fingertips tracing the planes of his face and neck then catching at his hair, Jensen taking his turn sipping at him.

How had they fasted _so long_.

When Jensen finally surfaced he all but wrested himself away. The compulsion to follow him was only arrested by his friend thunking his head on the ceiling as he assembled his limbs out of Misha's space, and cursing about being 'out of practice' as he shuffled back to his side of the cab, face flushed even in the dark. Misha laughed softly, more inside than out, and hoped he could hold on to the feeling.

In the end, Jensen reached for him, clasping his hand once he’d brought the old vehicle to life and reversed the turn. Putting the car into gear, he looked over,  tracing the topography Misha’s knuckles with a thumb.

“I’m taking you home,” he said.

 

 

** FIN **

 

 


End file.
